Powerline package is available for Debian starting from Wheezy (via backports). Use search
to get more information.

If used distribution does not have an official package installation guide below
should be followed:

Install Python 3.2+, Python 2.6+ or PyPy and pip with setuptools.
This step is distribution-specific, so no commands provided.

Install Powerline using one of the following commands:

pip install --user powerline-status

will get the latest release version and

pip install --user git+git://github.com/powerline/powerline

will get the latest development version.

Note

Due to the naming conflict with an unrelated project powerline is
named powerline-status in PyPI.

Note

Powerline developers should be aware that``pip install –editable`` does
not currently fully work. Installation performed this way are missing
powerline executable that needs to be symlinked. It will be located in
scripts/powerline.

Move the symbol font to a valid X font path. Valid font paths can be
listed with xsetq:

mvPowerlineSymbols.otf~/.local/share/fonts/

Update font cache for the path the font was moved to (root priveleges may be
needed to update cache for the system-wide paths):

fc-cache-vf~/.local/share/fonts/

Install the fontconfig file. For newer versions of fontconfig the config
path is ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/, for older versions it’s
~/.fonts.conf.d/:

mv10-powerline-symbols.conf~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/

If custom symbols still cannot be seen then try closing all instances of the
terminal emulator. Restarting X may be needed for the changes to take effect.

If custom symbols still can’t be seen, double-check that the font have been
installed to a valid X font path, and that the fontconfig file was installed to
a valid fontconfig path. Alternatively try to install a patched font.